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Slowly over the course of months, you can see Pruitt slowly siphoning Jim Davis' beard away. It is almost complete.

The beard didn't go away. It switched masters.

You consistently handle the intersection of real world and fantasy play with bold and joyous honesty. You're a great source of inspiration for my thinking even beyond the gaming table - Thankyou 🖖🏽

Another good setting would be the bronze age collapse. It's another truly apocalyptic event similar to the fall of the western roman empire. It's got barbarians at the gate(sea people), it's got a diversity of cultures and religions all blending together, it's got natural disasters(I think John Green described it as an "earthquake storm"), plague and and famine, it's got political intrigue ranging from city-states to empires and everything in between. The bronze age as a whole is my favorite part of history and often overlooked. It is a nice change of pace from pseudo-medievalism and I would love to see you guys do an episode on a bronze age world.

Every campaign I run will be the Golden Age of Piracy eventually.

I’ve got a Bachelors degree in History and dear god this advice is good.

As a middle school history teacher who has played DnD since 1989: thank you for this episode.

The European late medieval/early modern era has rapidly become my favourite campaign inspiration: the old feudal system is cracking or bending under the force of rising national identities; the world beyond Europe is being opened up leading to challenges to established paradigms; merchant guilds and banks have introduced the foundations of modern commerce, accumulating power to surpass the old nobilities they lend money to; all while armies for the interminable small wars are made of mercenary companies drawn from across the continent. It's an era that doesn't see a lot of love (I've found most people tend to skip straight from the High Middle Ages straight to the French Revolution with a detour to the Americas) but I would say is even more ideal for ADVENTURE! than the "typical" D&D setting (if there is such a thing) and actually has a historical precedent for some of the anachronisms that tend to crop up in games inspired by earlier eras. Plus, nobody complains about gunpowder anymore!

In Real Life, if you don't learn from history, you're doomed to repeat it, but in RPGs, if you DO learn from history, you can DOOM your players by repeating it....

Another historical campaign I'd like to do is what I call the "Mummy Campaign". That is, the PCs were ancient Egyptians who underwent a special ritual when they were mummified, allowing the gods (or, as the campaign goes on, the impersonal force of Ma'at) resurrect them every few centuries to restore balance or perform some important task. It would start in ancient Egypt, with the level 1 PCs being awakened to defend their tomb from grave robbers. Go through the Bronze Age Collapse, where they fight literal sea people (Tritons and Sahagan). Running around Classical Greece and the Roman Empire, fighting medusas, cyclopes, and hydras. Getting involved in medieval European politics. Branching off into Great Zimbabwe, the Silk Road, the court of Gengis Khan, three kingdoms era China, and warring states era Japan. Once the PCs reach high levels - we're talking close to 20th - they wake up in the 20s or 30s to discover the mummy of the pharaoh they were guarding was stolen by the British, so they need to go to London to get it back. Doing battle with soldiers wielding tommy guns, exchanging spells with Golden Dawn wizards, contending with the strange inventions of mad scientists, and boxing with two-fisted men of action on top of zeppelins. All the while, it'll be their opposition that needs to be afraid, because the PCs have grown into ancient, old world horrors. Warriors whose martial mastery has been perfected over a thousand battles, and magicians/priests who wield the power to call storms, warp with terrible curses, and thwart death itself.

I am so glad Jim's able to talk about history directly. I can tell he's been itching for years.

I'm currently running a Pathfinder campaign set in Australia in the 1790s. I'm trying to use real-world geography and events as a backdrop, and so far it's been pretty interesting. One of the PC's is a French Aristocrat fleeing the French Revolution, and another accidentally made his character into Ned Kelly, who isn't supposed to exist for another 100 years but you bet I'm gonna use the events from his life in plots for this player. I think that as long as you're presenting people, cultures, and traditions from history in a "hey, look at this, this is neat" kind of way, not in ridicule, you shouldn't have to worry about whether it's your story to tell. Culture is meant to be shared. And maybe seeing it spread around will encourage players to look into it further.

One of the campaigns I'd really love to do is a swash-buckling adventure in fantasy Venice. The Venetian Republic was this wealthy trade empire that stood for centuries, acting as the meeting point of commerce, art, and culture. Really lean into its Renaissance influence, with powerful houses vying for power, foreign influence, advances in the arts and sciences (and magic), schools of swordplay, etc. That my version of Fantasy Venice is full of merfolk - making it have as much going on below the waterline as above it - is just icing on the cake.

I like drawing inspiration from the Holy Roman Empire, the 30 years war, The Adventures of Simplicius Simplissimus, and the brothers Grimm; nothing better than dropping your players in a post-apocalypse.

In school, History classes had always been the hardest for me to grasp. But since starting D&D and especially since watching your videos, my interest in the subject has just grown and grown. Cut to today- I’m planning a new campaign and the starting city has me researching Pompeii and Mt Vesuvius for inspiration, and I love it

Jim should go all in and do a whole series on this subject(s) .

Shout out to Merv and Samarkand ! In AD&D they had the “Horde campaign” about a low magic steppe peoples who over take saipar(Iranian like kingdom) and parts of Kara Tur and parts of The Realms.

It’s not “who invents the crossbow” first. It’s “who invents the better staff/wand,” and “who invents the Joergbow?”

I want to run a game that's a mercenary company set in a high magical industrial revolution tech that descends into a world war. Heavily leaning on World War I and The Black Company

For the Curse of Strahd game I ran, I started the PCs on Earth in 1648. Ravenloft is one of those settings that assumes a certain level of technology, fashion, and society that standard medieval fantasy doesn't cover, so grounding the characters in a relatively comparable era helped paint the picture of who they are and what times were like. Various personal reasons led the party to a small town in northern Transylvania, where the dead arose (Cleric's Challenge adventure as an intro), and then they had to find a mysterious pass further inside the mountains to stop the source of evil causing the dead to come back, leading them into Barovia. Also, by having them start in a very low magic, normal setting, it provided the contrast needed to make the truly awful things that happen in Curse of Strahd to stand out.

Just started my first ever campaign and one of the major nations is loosely based on the Holy Roman Empite. Collection of Duchies, elect the next leader after the old one dies, they "answer" to a "pope", sometimes they fight 3another etc

I am currently running a game based heavily in the Sengoku Jidai period of Japanese history, and I heavily recommend it. The constant war and politics of the era makes for interest game nights, and there are so many interesting characters to pull inspiration from!

The extra history series over on the Extra Credits youtube channel is a great source for all kinds of random historical periods and events. They have multi episode series covering the lead up to world war one from the assassination to the months of failed diplomatic efforts to stop the war. They also have 5 to 8 episode arcs on the south seas bubble, the empire of Mali, the life of Ibn Battuta, the military career of Admiral Yi, the rise or Gengis Khan, and dozens of other major and minor historical events which make great inspirations for d&d campaigns.

My primary setting is basically an amalgamation of Late Antiquity with various anachronistic borrowings from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. One of the most notable historical events that I've borrowed directly was the Pazzi Conspiracy in Florence, where the players came back from a short trip to the Fey Wild to find that a month had passed and their political enemies had seized the city that they were based out of. Their ducal palace was encircled by militia and mercenaries, and enemy reinforcements were marching from another city elsewhere in the region. They had to effect a counter coup and find a way to deal with the inbound army. In the end, they wound up behaving much like the Medici did, with public executions and lots of rhetoric about saving the republic and whatnot.

Have been dming in depth second punic war campaign, magic just starting to work right after cannae, Livy chocked full of amazing twists and turns

I set my most recent pirate campaign in the midst of a Hatian style slave revolt because I find that historical period so fascinating and rich with potential

I LOVE this!! I set my game in ~74 b.c.e. in the beginning of the end of the Roman Republic. There is so much to draw on and you can just add mythical creatures. There are pirates, war, rebellion, intrigue, and fallen empires. It is so easy to find something to do!

Great vid as always. I once ran an entire 1-5 level campaign based on the history of Roanoke. It was a lot of fun. Thanks guys.

As somebody who played eu4 and ck2 before d&d it definitely gave me a unique perspective when making homebrew campaigns

I tend to base my campaigns on medieval history (especially having studied medieval history at uni), and multiple gods always feel just completely shoe-horned in unless I'm depicting an area based on medieval pagans. I think you're right on about the ancient Mediterranean fitting with d&d far better than medieval. My next campaign will be gurps and a monotheistic world, but I'm seriously looking forward to Theros and what they do with that.

I’ve always wanted to run a French Revolutionary campaign

I've been working on a setting I've been working on based on the bronze age collapse. I like it because it's got multiple cultures and religions clashing, it's apocalyptic, and we don't actually know for sure what happened - so players can't look up what happens next!

I feel like I should add this since it wasn't mentioned in the video: War was the default back then,peace was something most people weren't even after and when there was peace it was simply because of the actions of few extremely tenacious individuals. Matt Colville made a great video about the subject called The Politics of Peace and I highly recommend people to check it out because it seems like almost every single game I've played in has a steady state world,would be nice if there were more wars going on.

One of my all time favorite campaigns used Medieval Europe as a smokescreen to the fact that the players were in Ravenloft (and didn't know it). There were two parties and he eventually ran the other party through Expedition to Castle Ravenloft as his meta-reveal.

Amazing episode. Also mad props for the 'first as tragedy, second as farce' reference.

I did a fun one shot (that took 3 sessions) that was 1000 years in the future in the forgotten realms, and Thay was letting in archeologists from Waterdeep to excevate one of their tombs. It was VERY brits in egypt styled, but with the whole 'thay is full of undead you idiot' mixed with 'you are an alarm clock waking up a mummy lord, basically' ontop of it. it was fun, almost tpked my party.

Oh man what a great topic. And a what a great discussion! Well done. Wanting inspiration for RPGs has led me to so many history books and podcasts. History be cray

this might be my favorite web dm show so far!

Dunkirk as a grinder is great! I love DCC games for that- you start with 4-5 0-level characters and see what survives.

My Eberron-inspired noir campaign takes place in the occupied capital of a former Elven Empire based on Weimar Berlin.

I like you guys are going over modern and ancient history. All periods of history can be integrated to games. I love doing this in my games.

Great stuff as always, dudes! AD&D 2nd edition was one of the reasons I went on to study history and ancient languages in college. Because of history, I am always drawn towards games with deep historical or folklore derivatives. Games like The Dark Eye from Germany and Castles & Crusades being among my favorites (in addition to D&D of course). Thanks for this and Game On!

I find that using historical figures can be even more effective than using periods or cultures. While both can be invaluable in creating campaigns, I find that taking inspiration from the real people who made history and using them to create lifelike NPCs can lead to one of the most memorable and meaningful aspects of a campaign

I guess i' m gonna have to... *makes a bad history pun . . . Also as a southern bohemian i love the shoutout ❤️

Love this. Lots of great ideas for world building. I wouldn’t mind seeing more videos on stuff like this.

Some of my favorite resources for historical D&D were the 2e HR series of books. Each of the 7 books did a deep dive into a specific time period/culture in European history. The information was great, and each one came with an outstanding bibliography. They also recommended ways to integrate various elements of D&D into the historical themes of the settings. They have been a great source of inspiration for almost 30 years

Late Antiquity had a massive Black Death occur known as the Plague of Justinian. Arguably they were worse than the Black Death itself, though it's not clear. Great session!

I completely agree. Diving into history you certainly find that there is an endless litany of historical events that beat out the wildest movie plots and book series. I think you may have mentioned it one time before, but the Roman emperor who named his favorite horse - I know I'll spell this wrong if I try the correct one, but in english phonetics it would "in-ka-ta-toos" I believe - a consul (or maybe pro-consul), which was one of the highest sub-emperor governmental posts. Crazy shit like that happened. In another case I think there was an empress who also had a *favorite* horse - and favorite in the most gutter-esque way that comes to mind. Another emperor fancied himself a gladiator and to a degree disregarded his actual duties as emperor to fantasize and even to a limited degree live out his fantasies to be a heroic gladiator. For lead up to WW1 history works there are a number of interesting books, but one of them I have that lays things out well and isn't overly dense in case people aren't super history fans that is called "The Twelve Days: Two weeks in Europe's fatal summer" by George Malcolm Thompson from 1964. There's another one that's even better and far more detailed and engrossing that I used to have but for the life of me I can't remember the title - but people might can find it on amazon if they search around the topic. Edward Gibbons' multi-volume work on the Roman Empire is sort of the cliche, but also still decent, classic history of the latter days of the Roman Empire if people want to delve into that era. There are oodles of more recent and more accessible books as well, but Gibbons' is a broad over-view if that's what you want. Oooh ooh, one other time period if you want an even more ancient version of the "decline and fall" post-apocalypse era is the the late Bronze age multi-civilization collapse, where many of the major powers of the eastern Mediterranean and fertile crescent imploded/exploded/were invaded and fell. The Minoans and the Hittites among others. It was a very complicated situation, but studying it a bit can provide you with all sorts of ideas about how powerful empires can fall or be brought down and what it looks in the aftermath, all taking place in a world that wasn't super far back technologically from the early medieval aesthetic of D&D. It was more primitive in a number of areas, but the overall concepts and events could be ported over to the Forgotten Realms or your home-brew setting. For resources about this topic there are actually some pretty decent YT documentaries and lectures on the subject that might provide you with enough information to get you started or maybe enough all together for you.

I was so glad to hear the Hellenistic period included! It's my favorite period in history and I got the feels when Jim mentioned it. For anybody interested in an intro to the period, check out Ghost on the Throne by James Romm. It's a "great men" perspective on the period immediately following the death of Alexander the Great told in a narrative style and is ripe to be mined by DMs.

15:14 Massilia for the win!

Great episode guys!

Guys I really needed this thanks ♥️💕

I was thinking of drawing inspiration from the siege of Sarajevo but focus less on the glorifying of war but the surviving of a siege.

15:30 You've talked about making a D&D-book a long time now, well, THIS IS THE SETTING WE NEED!!!

Check out Deadlands. Alternative History is basically what the game is fueled by. They flat out suggest using a real city and studying the local history of where your game is set. I had a lot of fun using the town me and my group was in and playing in actual locations from the game itself. Gave it a powerful gravity.

The Roman Republic fascinates me as a contrast to the feudalism of the Medieval era. Like... sure it was corrupt and socially stratified, but still so wildly different than the Medieval mindset

I feel like Jim is like a drunk history geek in this video... and I love it !

What a coincidence, I've been deep diving into Roman history these last couple weeks, and I was thinking about how I could use it in D&D.

You have excellent taste in historical time periods, Jim. A good deal of my religious beliefs comes from Late Antiquity, with the Gnostics. And the magic of the Hellenistic period, I've thought the same thing about Late Antiquity for a while.

Love you guys!

I'm developing a campaign world on the premise of "What's the world Strahd left behind?" It's highly based on the eastern borderlands between the Habsburg Empire and the Ottoman Empire, but I've had the Ottomans wiped out by a Horde (kind of Mongols, but a set of monsters) that crushed it a few centuries ago. The Sultanate of Mur were orcs who had cast aside the worship of Gruumsh for Erathis. I had another idea for a campaign world that was very 19th Century Europe, with shades of World War I and Alexander Dumas. However, this world was halfling-dominated(!) with humans being essentially wiped out. For Hellenistic, check out Odyssey of the Dragon Lords and the upcoming WotC releases.

Honor culture (verbal insult leads to killing) vs modern dignity culture (turn the other cheek, humility). To understand the past centuries.

A lot of good stuff here. I would heartily reiterate the suggestion to look into setting more games in Central Asian/Silk Road inspired worlds. Another reason: The cities built there were grand, but made out of materials that decay rapidly, with the possible exceptions of stony foundations and other underworks. In other words, you've got a good excuse for dungeons to find and explore.

Incredible video. Thanks, you guys.

Get yourself a partner that looks at you the way Pruitt looks at Jim Davis explaining the hellenistic era 15:30

Fantastic. As usual

I see that all of us DMs are massive history needs, I love it lol

really enjoyed this episode, just found it hard to not have my brain drift and think of other history ideas :)

I know it's borrowing from literature not history but I'm borrowing the succession crisis that led to the dance of the dragons in Westeros in order to give a reason for the colony of dwarf exiles in my setting.

15:23 This kinda reminds me of the World of Theros coming out. MTG has some really cool world building, and I think this book can have a lot of potential to fill this void you reference here. Now if only it could go the other way, and we could get a Forgotten Realms/Dark Sun/(Insert D&D setting here) inspired set for the card game. I'd go broke in 2 seconds to build a Beholder Deck....but I digress. Jim saying "I wish this setting was used more" instantly made Theros come to mind.

One of the things I think could be a DEEPLY investigated topic is the invention of gunpowder in a magic D&D world. With the rise of the Artificer class and Gunslinger subclass, and through worlds like Eberron where heavily industrialized societies exist, what does that mean in a world full of dragons and fey and demons? In my current pseudo-medieval Asian campaign, my players are at the inception of gunpowder, and how that affects cannons and fire spells and new tactics and who has access to what knowledge and it's just great. Would love a take from you guys on this topic of firearms and gunpowder!

I'm a big World of Darkness buff so I like using settings like the Wild West and Dark Ages, and even the 50's UFO conspiracies and the future.

Nice! I just started running call of cthulu on top of D&D, so this came at a perfect time!

The setting I've been working on at the moment is inspired by Europe during the Regency Period with heavy doses of old school fairytale stuff and a smidge of gothic horror. There's pirates, highwaymen, werewolves and vampires. Also, man-eating beasts who can sense magic as if it were a scent (helps keep the setting relatively low magic).

I just sumbled upon a video about Zoroastrianism - and ALL of that tis going into my campain for sure!

This is absolutely perfect for me and couldnt have come at a better time. I have a campaign i want to start with my group wbere they are members of the Roman Lost Legion of real world so this video is perfect!

I'd like to do something with a profound paradigm shift akin to the one happening in Italy and surrounding countries in the Renaissance. That whole period of history is mind-blowing to me and has so much fodder. In my current campaign, the starting city is very much inspired by Edinburgh, including a Mary King's Close type part of the city. My players have no idea that it exists, let alone how close they've come to find out about its existence (in my city it is a relatively well kept secret) and I don't mind at all. If they never find out, some other group will. :)

I've really been feeling that pull towards the Mediterranean myself, it just seems perfect. There's a mod for the game Medieval II Total War called Europa Barbarorum 2, which is set around 350-400 BCE I think. It has a colossal amount of detail and historical accuracy, and playing it has educated me about that time a huge amount. Would really recommend it as a resource for anyone looking to run in that setting, it's also a fantastic game to boot.

Using WW2 battles as inspiration for encounters can be amazing. The fell king's forces first conquered the land around their frozen mountain realm using his endurance enhanced Frost Giants (panzers) that allowed them to blitzkrieg the old Kingdoms. The island kingdom, last standing in the west, defended themselves for years using their spitfire drake riders (royal airforce) to resist the dirigible alchemical bombers and their giant eagle riders (the luftwaffe). The counterattack was a brutal ground war where the beaches being stormed were defended by lightning bolt wielding mages in bunkers (machine guns), while Roc riding forces featherfall down behind enemy lines (paratroopers). Where do you start? Do you play as the (French) Resistance? Are you a part of the invasion? Or are you slogging it out in the east (Russia) as your enemies attempt to break your spirits and reinforce their western side before they're pinched in the middle? Sounds like a campaign to me.

Just started this, but for me: Fall of the Bronze Age Civilizations circa 1200BC

My big campaign is set at the transition between their Medieval and Renaissance periods, where technology and society were advancing in fits and starts at different rates across a continent. Change was coming, but awkwardly and painfully

"If you did a deep dive on everything, you'd still be in school." I felt this in my soul. It's why I didn't go on to get a masters' in the same topic I got my undergraduate degree. My dad has a doctoral and two masters degrees. He has chosen the life of deep diving.

on Toril, the Silk Road analog runs from Thesk to Kara-tur through the Hordelands. It is called the Golden Way

I feel a good example of a ttrpg that mirrored history was 7th Sea with it's similar but distinct history

The "medieval cold war" idea got me thinking. There's allusions to a conflict of gigantic (pun intended) proportions between dragons and giants in the official D&D lore. Such could act as the framework for the two superpowers. The straight conflict between metallic and chromatic dragons would also work - this probably requires a bit more work framing it away from the standard "good and evil" dichotomy that's traditionally set as

Yeah, there is the Golden Road in Faerûn that goes all the way to the Shou Empire in Kara Tûr

Thank god the beard is growing back!

Our current game is in a city based on ancient Rome with the senators and an emperor. Currently the party is trying to get in with the empire officials. History is my favourite inspiration to pull upon when home brewing worlds

The Dark Ages are really my favorite historical well to pull from as well. Any chance we could Jim to give us a reading list for some historical sources?

I'm literally inventing a new RPG system based on Ancient Korea. Thanks Guys, you helped a lot.

It's best to draw inspiration from history. I been trying to make a campaign based on historical accuracy - which is next to impossible when you have magic around

A Bronze Age Collapse game would be sweet.

The Italian Renaissance and the 18th Century are my favorite periods. :)

I can rattle off two African explorers off the top of my head: Mansa Musa and Ibn Battuta. I think we don't give high school history textbooks credit - they are trying their best to be more broad in scope. I personally love to draw inspiration from real history in areas that I've never seen explored in a speculative fiction setting. Speaking of borderline areas, I have a whole campaign basically set in fantasy "Zomia," drawing on the history and cultures of the Southeast Asian Massif.

Was talking with a player in a campaign about setting ideas and we both seem to be looking at different periods for inspiration, her Ancient Greece and me the golden age of piracy

Dunkirkian character funnels...the beginning of the All Guardsman Party

My personal favorite historical period to set a campaign in is the age of discovery

Displacer Beasts video when? I'm curious what created such a creature and what we're missing from the MM. Ankhegs, Basilisks, and other monstrosities would be interesting too. They're more mundane but curious.

I am willing to bet Mr. Davis has wanted to shoot this particular video for months.